Soup and Beer Make Things Better.

A few hours later, I feel better about the whole Costco ickiness. It was theraputic to write about it. I also talked to my mom and my husband, who said that he wished he'd been there when it occured; I pointed out that if he had, it probably, no, it certainly wouldn't have happened. Anyway, I feel like I can be okay with it regardless of what it finally comes to. I made Coney Island clam chowder (Manhatten clam chowder is its tonier title), a broth-based soup with tomatoes and bell peppers in it, for dinner, and drank a soothing bottle of Fat Tire, which also calmed me down considerably. I don't know who said it, someone probably did somewhere, but there is little that soup cannot help. I used to order Coney Island when I was kid living in San Francisco and my family would go out to eat at a fish joint called Spengers Fresh Fish Grotto on the harbor in Berkeley. The place was a total dive but (some of) the food was incredible. Hot buttery clams steamed in their own shells with garlic, and sourdough rolls to soak up the juice, remain an unparalleled delicacy in my mind.

You see here (sort of) the two little dudes that I picked up yesterday when I was shopping for gifts at Nifty Cool Toys in Foothill Village. I didn't realize until I got home that they were both a kind of hog, the one of the wart variety and other of the hedge. I was so taken with them that I had to bring them home. I also later realized that I had a very prickly, warty attitude when I left the house and the animals I brought home both mirrored and lightened my mood. Did you know that my little sister had a pet African hedgehog named Mrs. Podge when I was in junior high? Not many people do. (Know that about me, that is. Although I suppose that not many people have a hedgehog for a pet either.)